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Saturday, February 14, 2015

Wherein I Defend "50 Shades of Grey" as One More Harmless Erotic Romance

I have seen a ton of spiteful,
mean and hateful crap on FB about 50 Shades of Grey. The vitriol,
criticism... outright HATE. It is past rational. I guess a lot of people have
very strong feelings, but to me they are going way too far out for me to agree even on the middle ground.
In fact, while it's not my cuppa, and I have only read a few chapters of the
second novel in the middle, I still believe it does not warrant such extremism.
Nothing does, except maybe war and terrorists and politicians. Heh. I don't
think the writing is THAT BAD. It's not great (if it means anything to you, I have a degree in Lit/Writing from one of the top schools in the U.S., UCSD,) but that does not mean unreadable.
It is fiction and fantasy. It is not a real statement on how things
"should be" between a man and a woman or a so-called 'proper' BDSM
relationship or anything of the sort. It is not making any statement that I can
see that "this is right." In fact, the chapters I read were all about
Grey's damaged persona and past and how Ana feels she is strong enough
(not weak, mind you!) to take him on and try to help him. (This scene would not be in the movie because this is the second book and you'll have to wait for the second movie to see this play out.) Whether or not
that is right or wrong, that is the STORY. A story is going to have
horrible things happen because a story has imperfect characters who need to
figure things out to make the end of the story worth reaching and
hopefully with a somewhat happy ending. The characters have hurdles to conquer,
life-shit, love-shit, and personality shit. That includes all the abuse people
are saying happen in the book. I don't want to read a book about perfect people
with no issues and a story about love in which there aren't personal
problems to be overcome. Abuse? If it is there, it is part of the
"story." It is not a statement that abuse is okay.

I'm sick and tired of people
thinking women need to be protected from their own fantasies, too. We are made
to feel ashamed again and again for things men have had access to forever such
as all kinds of porn from rape porn to BDSM to "Lolitas" to rough,
sweet, and inbetween. Now women want it all and are people saying we are too
weak to decide for ourselves that a fantasy can stay a fantasy and we might
like it but not in real life? This is all the old criticism coming back and
hitting me about writing adult fanfic and reading fanfic... that it was kinky, pervy
and wrong and women should be good girls and not do it or otherwise we're
somehow sick or twisted.

I don’t think it’s right for
anyone, man or woman, to tell another what they should or should not do behind
closed doors between consenting adults as if there is only one set of rules for
an erotic relationship. But I think it’s even more insidious if one person dictates
to another how their private, personal fantasies should be. Fantasy can involve
things people don’t want in real life, but in fiction all constraints are off.
That’s why it’s so wonderful. You can have a darker fantasy without the
repercussions. It’s why we have such popular genres such as horror, murder
mystery, even crazy action adventure that breaks all laws of physics and leaves
a body count after much extreme violence. We can’t or don’t want it in real
life, but it’s entertaining as a story which we can walk away from having
enjoyed but not having had to live it. I feel erotica is one of those genres
where self-expression is allowed to freely roam uninhibited and that’s a good
thing because then we don’t have to have it all bottled up and combined with
guilt and shame. Guilt and shame are what twist people, not stories, not
fiction, not fantasy and not entertainment. All the “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts”
of this world when involving personal thoughts and feelings that harm none only
serve to screw people up.

We are passionate, fiery, frail,
strong, incomplete, loving, fierce and flawed as humans, all of us, both male
and female. Good stories are about (to quote Harlan Ellison) “the human heart
in conflict with itself.” Good characters arise out of that. Whether 50 Shades
is good or bad is not the point. The point is that the characters have made an
impact and people want to read/know about them even if you do not. Something here
has reached millions. It started out as “word of mouth.” Why, if it wasn’t somehow
intriguing on some level to a large group, did that word of mouth work so well until it was picked up by CNN and others as an "of interest" human story leading the book to sell millions?

I defend the book’s right to be
and I passionately defend the rights of women to like it if they choose without
shame and repercussion and hate and being accused of being anti-feminist or
sick and "into" abuse. Does everyone who likes horror want to be a
serial killer or the victim of a serial killer? I seriously think not!

Oh, and take all the
characteristics that people say they hate about this movie version and tell me
they don't exist in every single nominated Oscar movie this year!

That said, it’s no secret to those
who know me I write erotica myself… and romance. I have two horror erotica
stories in a couple of old Hot Blood anthologies (still in print.) I have
written tons of vampire stories, many erotic in nature, many now unavailable in out-of-print antholgies. (I'm working on getting a collection of my vampire erotica together and on Amazon for this year.) And aside from my
erotic male/male romance trilogy (The Foundling Trilogy) I also have a book of
erotica short stories that covers all aspects of fantasy from sweet to rape,
het, bi, gay, underage, group called My House is Full of Whispers.

It is very
un-politically-correct. However, it is pure poetic fantasy and that’s all. Go
take a peek. It’s actually quite tame in comparison to the constant violence in
TV and movies, not to mention the constant Hollywood subjugation of women (I
can’t count the hundreds of obligatory strip club scenes I have seen in 90
percent of movies and TV… all for the pleasure of men.) Turn-about is fair
play. Whatever fantasy we want, men and women, we should be able to have… in fiction.

I completely defend the right of
50 Shades to exist without deciding it harms people, I am envious of E.L. James
for being, on some level I must be unable to see, so fucking brilliant, and I
hope this opens the door for more authors and readers, and better-written, more
brilliant erotica to come.

1 comment:

I haven't read the book and don't plan to, or see the movie. Not really my cup of tea. But my thoughts on the subject parallel yours here. I saw someone the other day criticize the brutality of westerns, and someone else wonder why anyone would want to read horror, and so on and so on. My response is generally, read what you want. No one has to defend their choices to me. It's not my business to tell people what is good or bad for them. And just because someone reads a particular genre doesn't mean they are going to act that out in real life.